5 Answers from Attorneys

If the defendant can't afford to hire a lawyer, the court will appoint one for him. But if he can afford private counsel, cost should not be his sole concern. He should focus instead on skill and experience. There may very well be some relatively inexpensive criminal defense lawyers in Tulare who are quite good at what they do. But there are probably also some who don't have a clue how to defend a murder case. The defendant has too much at stake to focus only on cost.

If you can qualify for a public defender, you are often much better off being represented by an experienced public defender than a "cheap" attorney in private practice. You do not want to get an attorney without criminal law experience. Often a non-criminal law attorney quotes a low price for a major case without knowing how much work is involved and then stops working on the case after doing "x" amount of work. You also do not want an unexperienced criminal law attorney who is doing it for the "experience." Assuming that the case is not a capital case it is not necessary that the attorney have murder experience but the attorney must have experience doing serious cases.